401 



SCIENTIFIC AGRICULTURE. 



AGRICULTURE AND THE EMPIRE. 



The article by Sir W. T. Thisel ton-Dyer in your issue of March 22nd is a 

 fair statement of the position the Home Country should take in the development 

 of agricnlture in the Empire at large, and of the necessary training the future 

 experts and researchers in Indian agricnlture should receive ; and this view requires 

 pressing upon those responsible for the development of agriculture in our colonies, 

 so that the policy of employing as agricultural experts men with a mere smattering 

 of scientific method, combined with a more or less thorough knowledge of British 

 agriculture, may not be followed. Investigation and careful research are wanted, 

 and the only men who cau perform this are those whose sense of proportion and 

 scientific methods of attack have been developed by a systematic training in the 

 sciences having a bearing on agriculture. Agriculture is at once a science, an art, 

 and a business, and the successfnl agriculturist at home must be a man equipped 

 with an adequate knowledge of all these subjects, combined with a special ability 

 for one or more of them. 



The agricultural colleges of Great Britain afford a training in the science 

 and art of agriculture, but on the business side of the subject not much can be 

 attempted, as personal experience and responsibility of the individual for his 

 business transactions are necessary conditions. Many agricultural colleges and 

 agricultural departments of our universities possess the necessary scientific equip- 

 ment and a staff of adequate attainments to give to the future Indian or colonial 

 expert a thorough systematic training in such sciences as chemistry, botany, and 

 zoology, in au agricultural atmosphere. The latter condition must be of immense 

 importance in impressing on the student the relations of the pure science to 

 practice ; and although the practical application he will experience abroad will 

 differ essentially from that observed at home, he will at all events be prepared 

 to use his science to solve problems of economical value, and, if his training has 

 been broad and thorough, to become a most useful factor in developing the 

 agriculture of the country. It is certain that a man trained at an agricultural 

 college or at an institution equipped with the necessary facilities for the study 

 of animal or plant life will be better able to enter upon his duties as investigator 

 of agricultural science in India than a man whose training has been received at 

 the ordinary technical college. From the staff and students of this college during 

 the past few years experts have gone : to South Africa, four, including the director 

 of the Transvaal Agricultural Department ; to India four, including two to Pusa ; 

 to British Guiana, the West Indies, and Egypt, two, as well as to other countries, 

 so that it can claim some connection with agriculture in our colonies. 



Sir W. Thiselton-Dyer says that notice should be given five years in advance 

 of the requirements for trained men ; with this opinion I agree, though I doubt 

 its practicability. What we require is more men of recognised ability to train for 

 such positions. Hitherto some branch of technical work other than agriculture 

 has been the object to a great extent of the trained student, but now that there 

 is a future for highly trained men who will bring their scientific knowledge and 

 spirit of investigation to bear upon the problems of agriculture at home and abroad, 

 we hope that men of the l ight stamp will come to be trained partly perhaps in 

 this country, and afterwards under the conditions in which their future work will 

 lie, but in any case to go through a complete course of systematic study in the 

 science to which they intend to devote themselves when they have gained their 

 technical experience. It is a fact, and one to be deplored, that the agricultural 



